Even an amendment to the Constitution could not be directly proposed by
the people in the exercise of their residual power or adopted by them.
As previously said, it could only be proposed by two-thirds of the House
and the Senate, and then could only become effective, if ratified by
three-fourths of the States, acting, not by a popular vote, but through
their chosen representatives either in their legislatures or special
conventions. Thus they denied the power of a majority to alter even the
form of government. Moreover, they gave to the President the power to
nullify laws passed by a majority of the House and Senate by his simple
veto, and yet, fearful of an unqualified power of the President in this
respect, they provided that the veto itself should be vetoed, if
two-thirds of the Senate and House concurred in such action. Moreover,
the great limitations of the Constitution, which forbid the majority, or
even the whole body of the House and Senate, to pass laws either for
want of authority or because they impair fundamental rights of
individuals, are as emphatic a negation of an absolute democracy as can
be found in any form of government.

Measured by present-day conventions of democracy, the Constitution is an
undemocratic document. The framers believed in representative
government, to which they gave the name "Republicanism" as the
antithesis to "democracy." The members of the Senate were to be selected
by State legislatures, and the President himself was, as originally
planned, to be selected by an electoral college similar to the College
of Cardinals.

The debates are full of utterances which explain this attitude of mind.
Mr. Gerry said: "The evils we experience flow from the excesses of
democracy. The people are the dupes of pretended patriots." Mr.
Randolph, the author of the Virginia plan, observed that the general